22 rights blows for Mamata govt this year

Members say CM's remarks 'annoying', chairman Ganguly did not comment

WHILE West Bengal State Human Rights Commission (WBHRC) chairman Ashok Kumar Ganguly seems unperturbed with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's scathing remarks against him, other senior members of the commission candidly said the comments have "damaged the morale of the commission employees who are working to render justice to the people."

"We feel annoyed and disgusted. This way you are destroying the backbone of a statutory body,'' said Sujoy Haldar, Joint Secretary, WBHRC.

Haldar said a possible reason why the Chief Minister was so miffed with the commission could be that since Ganguly took over as chairman on April 3 this year, the Commission has made 22 recommendations to the state government — a figure double than that recommended by the WBHRC last year. All the recommendations relate to violation of rights.

Mamata, during a function organised to mark the platinum jubilee of the Assembly recently, said "she had brought one person to the commission who did not know his limits".

"He was writing orders as a President or a Supreme Court Judge did, and was calling officials and making them sit for 12 hours," she added.

The WBHRC, while unwilling to be dragged into any controversy, said the commission was empowered to call senior officials of the state government under Section 14/2 of the WBHRC Act for the purpose of investigation.

"I don't want to make any comment on what the chief minister said regarding the commission...I can tell you what we are doing.....there is this Act and what we are doing is in strict accordance with the law,'' Ganguly said.

What has made Mamata more angry is the fact that the SHRC is taking cognizance of cases suo moto and taking the government to task. In the latest case, the commission recommended to the state government to pay Rs 50,000 each to Professor Ambikesh Mahapatra and his neighbour in the Mamata cartoon row case. The SHRC ordered a probe by Director, Social Welfare department in the rape and alleged murder of an inmate at a rehabilitation Home at Gurap in Hooghly. It also ordered inquiry by its own ADG in the murder of the whistleblower Barun Biswas at Sutia in North 24 Parganas district.

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